United States v. Giuseppe Mirenda

Case summary

Giuseppe Mirenda, 29, of Salt Lake City, was a co-owner of five Utah restaurants and of Sicilia Restaurant Management. Between March and June 2020 he fraudulently applied for and signed agreements for six Economic Injury Disaster Loans, misrepresenting the citizenship status of his co-owners to obtain them; in total he unlawfully obtained $1,889,400.¹

In the applications he represented and agreed that the money would be used solely as working capital to alleviate economic injury caused by the pandemic. Mirenda used it for himself instead. In less than a year, he spent more than $1.1 million of it to buy houses in West Jordan, Utah, and Las Vegas, Nevada. At least another $81,781 went toward luxury cars, including a BMW M3 and a Jaguar F-PACE, and $39,000 went into cryptocurrency. In 2021, he tried again, applying for a further $520,000 in EIDL funds; that application was denied.¹

Mirenda repaid about $680,000 of what he'd taken. The United States also recovered approximately $1,251,469 by seizing the profits from the forced sale of the two homes.¹

He pleaded guilty in February 2024 to two counts of conversion of government property. U.S. District Judge Howard C. Nelson, Jr. sentenced him in August 2024 to 12 months and a day in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine. The Utah Federal COVID-19 Fraud Strike Force, whose members include Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI and the SBA Office of Inspector General, investigated the case, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd C. Bouton prosecuted it.¹

Notes

1. U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Utah, "Utah Restaurant Owner Sentenced to Federal Prison for COVID Fraud" (original), August 15, 2024. ↩₁ ↩₂ ↩₃ ↩₄

Summary written from the documents on this page; every sentence is sourced.